Near Nature. Near Perfect.

Posted by Simon

Commentation

We were in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho for a few days on our road trip. (See the daily photos on my facebook page.) We took a hike one day in one of the city parks that borders the lake and we overheard a young lady say: “So I posted it and right away there was a lot of commentation.” I knew immediately that I had heard a new word and that it is useful new word.

Since then I have had to defend the word against the word conservatives who say that “commentary” means the same thing. But it doesn’t. Commentary is organized and on topic. “Commentation” is free form and disorganized. Commentary is marching. Commentation is rambling. Commentary is letters to the editor. Commentation is social media.

Embrace this word:

Commentation

Posted by Simon

On the breakfast tables in the hotels we stayed at in Italy they had very small trash cans. These turned out to be very useful. Breakfast was served buffet style and we invariably ended up with trash. Yogurt containers, butter wrappers, banana peels, the piece of toast you dropped and much more. It was very convenient to have a place on the table to put all of it.

We don’t do that in the USA. Yet. But it is an opportunity for someone. They were about the size of a kids beach pail and varied in design. The perfect one would have the the establishments name on it.

I failed to get a picture of this innovation transfer idea but I have sprinkled this post with pictures of restaurants in Italy to whet your appetite if not your interest.

At Whitney Portal with Nurit we hiked a few mile miles up the famous Mt Whitney Trail.

Nurit at the first stream crossing.

Carmela and Ben Rotter hiked with me to the top of Mono Pass (started near Tom’s Place) and beyond. About 11 miles and 3600 ft of elevation gain.

Does Mono Pass look lunar?

And finally Howard R, Nurit and I hiked 4 miles in Lundy Canyon (just north of Lee Vining). It is a beautiful valley with beaver dams, waterfalls everywhere, old log cabin and the ruins of mines. A great hike.

Posted by Simon

On our drive from Santa Fe to visit the Pecos Pueblo we visited the Carnegie Library in Las Vegas, New Mexico. It was Sunday so the library was closed but as we drove up the sky cleared and I got this great photo.

Yes it was designed as a copy of Monticello. The building of the Carnegie Libraries was an amazing thing. It seems that someone like Stephen Fried who wrote Appetite for America about Fred Harvey and the Harvey Houses could do a great job telling the Carnegie Library story and sell a lot of books.

From the Wikipedia article: ” 2,509 Carnegie libraries were built between 1883 and 1929″

When in Las Vegas NM eat at Charlies Spic & Span. They have excellent Sopapillas and even better freshly made flour tortillas.

Posted by Simon

Every medieval town we saw on our European trip had a cathedral and a clock tower. In one of the towns, probably Bern, I realized that time used to be a monopoly of the church. They had the bell in the church steeple and since nobody had a clock when the priest pulled the bell to signal that it was noon, it was noon. It was until the late medieval era when civic governments got clocks and towers to put them in that the church lost its monopoly. Interesting. What monopolies exist today in the background that we don’t see because they are part of the fabric of our society?

If your interested in the beginning of the Renaissance read The Swerve by Steven Greenblatt a nonfiction account of the rediscovery of Lucretius that reads like fiction.

One more time question if you have time: Why does an hour have sixty minutes around the world? We use different languages distance and weight measures but time measurements seem to be universal. Why?

Posted by Simon

In Rothenburg, Bavaria we were surrounded by evidence of the beginnings of the city state. I wrote the other day about the consequences of compulsory taxes for defense. Another early function of government was to try and make the marketplace fair. In Rothenburg we saw two evidences of attempts to have a fair market. The first was that they had standard measuring rods on the outside wall of the City Hall.

The second was a dunking cage for bakers and millers who didn’t give fair weight.

Seeing these artifacts raised two questions. What was the states interest in having standard weighs and measures? Where has this nascent regulation led us?

The answer to the first is that if the marketplace is fair, more people will participate and prosperity will increase. A common and an individual good comes from a government intervention.

The answer to the second is that we are now surrounded by regulation. Most of which are not about fairness in the marketplace but about the governments idea of what is the common good. I would offer as exhibits of this behavior: plastic bag bans and minimum wage laws. But where do we draw the line. That is what politics is about.

A teaser for Friday: Time is on my mind. Did you know it used to be a monopoly.

In Rothenburg we had a great English guided tour run by Claudia Koller-Lindner. Go to the tourist information for the daily group tour at 2 pm or email her at claulinni@gmx.de to arrange a private tour.

* The Jungfrau is the area of the Swiss Alps accessible through Interlaken. The three main peaks are the Jungfrau, The Monch and the Eiger. The three main towns are Lauterbrunnen, which is about where Yosemite Valley is, Wengen which is about where Toulome Meadows is and Murren where we stayed which is about where Glacier Point is. I suggest that a small town at Glacier Point would be a positive thing.